STAR TREK
Catspaw

From Wikipedia:

"Catspaw" is an episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is episode #36, production #30, and was first broadcast October 27, 1967. It was repeated on May 24, 1968. It was written by Robert Bloch, and directed by Joseph Pevney. Its gothic horror elements are perhaps best explained by the proximity of the episode's release to Halloween.

Overview: Two powerful aliens threaten the well-being of the Enterprise and her crew.

More here.

Okay, the second season begins!

This one, "Catspaw," probably isn't going to make too many top forty lists, but I have a great deal of affection for it. Okay, it's a bit off, I'll admit, even for Star Trek, and doesn't even come close to having some of the more science-oriented ideas that the self-respecting and serious fans go for, but it does have a lot of fun ideas. That is, this is as close to the comic book genre as the show gets.

For instance, Kirk and his landing party are tempted by plates of large and shiny gem stones, which the Captain rejects because he can make them himself with technology on the Enterprise--this comes right out of Superman, who can create diamonds by compressing lumps of coal in his own hands. There are witches and a black cat. There is an ominous castle. A skeleton in a dungeon. Sorcerers. A tiny Enterprise model that, when it is held near a candle, makes the real thing overheat. Stick bug aliens. I mean, "Catspaw" is like a toy box full of nifty concepts pulled straight out of 1960s DC Comics. All it needs is the Flash being turned into a giant paperweight.

It's also extraordinarily well executed, most likely because the guy who wrote it, Robert Bloch, who also wrote the book on which Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho was based, is a total professional. Good solid storytelling. This may not be an episode for the hard science fiction fan, but if your way into scifi, like mine, was through comic books, you'll probably dig this one as much as I do.

And let's not forget that this was the first appearance of Chekov, complete with his weird Beatle wig to make him more appealing to the youth audience!

Go check it out. Like I said, it's fun.


"Bones..."

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

THE STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE OF THE MONTH IS...



...Mr. Spock!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The New Politics of Post-Katrina New Orleans

From CounterPunch:

Social justice activists in the city note that he’s the only candidate to talk about the city’s problems as systemic. Discussing the city’s tourism-based economy, Perry said: “New Orleans has a system that is almost designed to be oppressive.” He described a workforce subsisting on minimum-wage jobs and a public housing system that subsidizes employers who pay unfair salaries. “If we paid people a living wage, then we could really transform our city,” said Perry.

A native New Orleanian, Perry founded a fair housing center in Mississippi before becoming director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center in 2005. His central promise is to reduce the city’s murder rate by 40 percent in his first term, saying he would do this by focusing the police department’s resources on what he says are “one or two hundred individuals” who are responsible for most of the violent crime in the city and away from the nonviolent offenses that he says the department currently focuses on.

More here.

Like I've said here a couple of times before, the politics of New Orleans are impenetrable to me. I mean, understanding local politics for any city requires a lot of homework, but the Times-Picayune, the big local daily here, doesn't provide much context, and when it does, it's from a very mainstream, establishment oriented perspective. What's a recent left-wing transplant to the NOLA area to do?

The above linked short essay from CounterPunch, in support of the little known progressive mayoral candidate James Perry, does more to make me understand what's going on here than two years of reading the Picayune have. Don't get me wrong. It only scratches the surface, really, providing two or three ideas I'm able to fit into my overall understanding of the American political dynamic. But given the information blackout I'm suffering down here in the Crescent City, that's something, to be sure.

I think I might email the guy who wrote this and ask him what I should be reading.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Cy Ridge photo prank leads to 3 suspensions

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

A spelling prank in a class photo for more than 600 seniors at Cypress Ridge High School led to the suspension of three students.

Some students wore T-shirts spelling out “CLASS” as part of “Class of 2010” in a formal shot.

But in a later informal shot, students representing “C” and “L” moved from the front row, leaving behind a different three-letter word.

Administrators at Cy-Ridge cited the school's code of conduct and suspended the three students for three days. The penalty began Tuesday.

Senior Austin Knight says “C and L ran off” and it's not the fault of the other three students, who also were fined $135. The money will help pay the cost of retouching the photo.

Senior Raymond Carrigan says the students were “ignorant and disrespectful.”

Actually, that's the whole article. Click here to see it in context and to view reader comments, most of which seem to support the pranksters.

I was class president when I was a senior at Kingwood High School back in 1986. For our class picture that year, I was seated dead center in the first row, and was wearing a button that said "I am opposed to the HISD dress code." HISD stands for Humble Independent School District, for which KHS was, and continues to be, a crown jewel. Before they took the shot, the principal walked up to me and said, "Take that thing off. You're supposed to be the class president!" I backed down and took it off, even though I was pretty certain the offending button wouldn't be readable in the finished photo, anyway. I regret having caved in so easily.

My foiled protest was more blatantly political than this successful one at Cy Ridge, but the point is essentially the same: high school is bullshit, and I want everyone to understand that I know it.

These days, I can tell you exactly why high school is bullshit, but this protest in far West Houston gives me hope. American kids spend thirteen years of their lives enveloped in a governmental institution that constantly tells them that they are there to be "educated," that "education" is a great thing, and that they will be worthless bad people if they don't willingly receive this wonderful "education," even while it is rammed down their throats. Most kids go along to get along, but some resist. Because schools are far more about indoctrinating children into the culture of obedience and authority, rather than about actual learning, virtually all of these resisters are simply incapable of articulating why they resist. But in their hearts, they understand that there is something deeply degrading and humiliating about the totalitarian institutions we euphemize as "schools." So they fight back.

Sometimes it's making a fart noise to disrupt class. Sometimes it's getting high in the bathroom. Sometimes it's spelling the word "ass" in the class photo. But it always means the same thing: I am a human being, damn it, and you will not fucking lord over me! If we had a school system geared toward training our youth to actually think, and analyze, and debate about important and meaningful issues, fart noises would probably be a less prominent protest form, but then, that would contradict the obedience imperative, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Anyway, my congratulations to the ass kids of Cy Ridge. You may not realize it, but you really are fighting the good fight.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

MAJORITIES: IF THE SITUATIONS WERE COMPLETELY REVERSED

From the Washington Monthly courtesy of Eschaton:

In this hypothetical, despite two wars, Democrats rejected funding for the troops. Despite a terrorist plot, Democrats rejected the qualified nominee to head the TSA. Despite an economic crisis, Democrats rejected economic recovery efforts, a jobs bill, and nominees to fill key Treasury Department posts.

Now, in this hypothetical, what do you suppose the political climate would look like? Would the huge Republican majority simply wring its hands? Would GOP officials decide it's time to try "bipartisan" governing? Would Republicans shrink from pursuing their policy agenda?

Or would every single day be another opportunity for Republicans to be apoplectic about Democratic obstructionism? How many marches on Washington would Fox News organize, demanding that Democrats allow the governing majority to function?

More here.

So years ago I found myself, as I have many times since then, defending my vote for Ralph Nader in what was then the upcoming notorious presidential election of 2000. Actually, this was one of the more substantial arguments I've had on the subject--most of these discussions are along the lines of my being "stupid" or how I'm effectively working for the Republicans. But this one was a bit different. My position, as usual, is that the Democrats don't really represent my views; they say they're liberal, but I just don't see them going after much policy that I would describe as liberal. Consequently, I've decided to vote only for candidates who espouse views with which I agree. My opposition's position was that the Green Party, which had nominated Nader as their candidate for that election, doesn't have any seats in Congress, which means they couldn't really do much even if their guy won the election.

Get it? Voting Green, or for Nader, or for any third party or independent candidate is a waste of time because none of these people are ultimately in a position to actually do anything should they win the Oval Office, which they probably won't, anyway. Okay, point well taken. But then classic third party or independent insurgencies have never really been about actually winning offices as much as they are about changing the debate, but that's another story.

My point today is that the Democrats, who have majorities in both houses of Congress, and occupy the White House, are currently in a position to actually do something about the way this nation functions. But they don't. In the end, I can't really see much of a difference between my voting for a candidate who would be politically impotent if he won, but represents my views, and voting for a candidate who would be politically powerful if he won, but doesn't represent my views. Either way nothing happens. The Democrats are worthless.

I think I'm going to keep voting for left-wing independents. At least there's a chance they'll change the political dynamic such that Democrats swing to the left. But I just can't keep voting for pathetic career politicians who value their own personal status at the expense of the nation's fate.

I guess I'm just old fashioned that way.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie and Sammy



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

People's Historian and Progressive Hero Howard Zinn Dies

From the Boston Globe courtesy of AlterNet:

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam... died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.

“His writings have changed the consciousness of a generation, and helped open new paths to understanding and its crucial meaning for our lives,” Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, once wrote of Dr. Zinn. “When action has been called for, one could always be confident that he would be on the front lines, an example and trustworthy guide.”

Click here for the rest.

This is sad. I mean, I didn't even know about Howard Zinn's work until he was in his mid 70s, so he's always been an old man to me, but still. He changed my life.

Or rather, his great book A People's History of the United States changed my life. Before reading it, the phrase "class struggle" was something alien to me. Sure, I was already a liberal by the late 90s when I first read it, but such seemingly Marxist rhetoric had no place in my understanding of the way things work here in America. Zinn taught me that you don't have to be a communist to participate in the class struggle--indeed, I learned from him that we're all participating in the class struggle whether we care to characterize it that way or not. And perhaps more importantly, Zinn taught me that the class struggle has been going on since before the Revolutionary War, that fighting the wealthy elites who oppress the poor and working classes is, in fact, as American as apple pie.

That is, Howard Zinn gave me an intellectual framework for my leftism which has allowed me to love my country while at the same time criticizing it for failing, again and again, to live up to the standards for which it was supposedly established. At the age of forty two, I believe, more than ever now, in the simple ideas we were all taught as children: America is about freedom, equality, justice and democracy. I cannot accept establishment voices telling me that we have all that, when I can simply glance around and see that we don't. Howard Zinn deeply understood the difference between what we say we are and what we actually are, and researched warehouses full of facts to back him up.

Those who dismiss his writing by calling it too liberal or radical just don't get it. A People's History is a book of facts. The events described in it actually happened. Ideology cannot change the reality: we are a nation of haves and have-nots, a nation of the powerful and the powerless, and Americans on the short end of the stick have always resisted this unjust social order, always insisted that we live up to our values.

That's the tradition I want to be a part of. The true American tradition. And he taught me that.

Farewell, Howard Zinn.

(Listen to NPR's story on Howard Zinn here.)

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

STAR TREK
Operation: Annihilate!

From Wikipedia:

"Operation: Annihilate!" is the last original episode from the first season of the original Star Trek series. It is episode #29, production #29, and was broadcast April 13, 1967. It was written by Stephen W. Carabatsos, and directed by Herschel Daugherty.

Overview: The crew of the Enterprise must find a way to exterminate malevolent parasitic creatures that have taken over a Federation colony.

More here.

This is a very silly episode.

Indeed, Star Trek finishes its first season by following what is arguably its best episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever," with what is arguably its most absurd episode--only the third season's "The Way to Eden," the show's sole outing into the movie musical genre, rivals "Operation: Annihilate!" for sheer silliness. In some ways, that's a shame: this one has the kernel of a good idea, lifting some plot elements from the great Robert Heinlein book The Puppet Masters. Alas, it's all so poorly executed, that the only way to watch is by being prepared to laugh. Repeatedly.

Actually, there's some pretty funny shit here. When the Enterprise first arrives at the infected colony, they are confronted by a small gang of colonists armed with metal clubs shouting "Go away! We don't want to hurt you!" while they charge at the landing party. Their acting is wretched, and therefore hilarious. The parasites, on the other hand, look like lumpy pancakes. Indeed, according to the above linked Wikipedia article, the props department used altered "novelty vomits" to build the creatures. When they fly menacingly, it's very WTF. And when Spock loses his sight in the final act, Kirk and McCoy have a brief and sorrowful moment that could have been pulled directly from Little House on the Prairie.

The funniest moment, by far, is the painful screaming of Kirk's infected sister-in-law: "Things! Horrible things!" Oh god, she's, like, David Lynch funny.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not all horrible. In fact, there's a nice fist fight on the bridge, when the infected Spock tries to take control of the ship. It takes everybody in the room, finally, to hold him down, while McCoy has one of those always-cool hypo spray moments to put him out. But, by and large, this one's just goofy.

So go watch it. And have a good laugh.


Spock right after being infected by one of the parasites.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

ACORN gotcha man among four arrested for attempting
to tamper with Mary Landrieu's office phones

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune courtesy of Eschaton:

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats.

More here.

I suppose it's not surprising that these right-wing sting operation vigilantes would strike again, flush with the seeming success of their ACORN adventure, which obviously made them feel comfortable upping the ante by going after a US Senator. What is surprising is the target they chose. Mary Landrieu? WTF? Sure, she's a Democrat, but she's one of those Blue Dogs, a total conservative, one of the last Senate holdouts on health care reform, utterly owned by Big Pharma and other corporate interests, especially Big Oil. Personally, I have no problem with anybody going after her--I've kind of come to hate her after five years in Louisiana. But it's just so counterintuitive that these conservative pranksters would target her. Why not an actual liberal? Why not somebody who's not causing the Democrats to twist and turn uselessly in the wind?

I don't get it. My suspicion is that they're stupid. You know, get the Democrat, any Democrat. Maybe they had some info on her that made them want to follow up with a wiretap. But still. She's their man, doing their work, inside the opposition party. Why fuck that up? Man, conservatives just get weirder and weirder.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
Saints seal trip to Super Bowl after Favre throws late interception

From the AP via ESPN:

NEW ORLEANS -- A 40-yard field goal in overtime by a little-known kicker could become as famous as jambalaya in these parts.

The New Orleans Saints, a team with no home and an uncertain future five years ago, are heading for their first Super Bowl. By battering Brett Favre and beating the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 Sunday, they set off celebrations on Bourbon Street that locals never could have imagined in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

And

Favre threw away Minnesota's best chance to win, tossing an interception deep in New Orleans territory in the closing seconds of regulation. Then the Saints won the coin toss and ended it on Hartley's kick 4:45 into OT.

Click here for the rest.

Yeah, the Vikings had us. All they had to do was send out the kicker. Instead, they tried to pick up a few more yards, which resulted in the Saints forcing the Vikings' fifth turnover, sending the game into overtime. There's definitely some Super Bowl destiny going on here.

Don't get me wrong. It's not as though it all came down to an interception robbing Favre's last chance at the big one. The Saints' so-so defense was rolling over for the Vikings' high octane offense all day long, but managed to hold the line with more forced turnovers than I have ever seen in a football game--apparently, said the FOX sports announcers, this is one of their specialties. That is, stealing the ball was the Saints' defense modus operandi against the Vikings: the last minute pick was no fluke. It's just how they play the game.

And let's not forget how they kept smacking the shit out of the former Packer QB: today on NPR, former Redskin great Joe Theismann said that he had never in his life seen a quarterback take the beating Farve took against the Saints on Sunday. And that's really saying something: Theismann's career ended infamously with the brutal snapping of his femur during a game back in 1985.

I haven't been an NFL fan since the Oilers left Houston for Tennessee. I mean, I'll watch a game if it's on, but I can't even get myself on board with Houston's replacement squad, the Texans. College ball, especially when it's burnt orange, has been my love since the mid 90s. But that's probably why I've gotten so excited about the Saints. Being in the New Orleans area on game day is a lot like being in a college town on game day, and not just any college town--NOLA, on Sundays during football season, is more like College Station or Baton Rouge; tumble weeds drift around the city, and businesses virtually shut down because everybody's watching the Saints. The devotion here is absolutely infectious.

So now I say "we" when I'm talking about them. I guess the Saints are now my team. Really, it's been getting to be that way for me for a while. The Saints don't have that shitty corporate business feel that I get from most of the other NFL franchises. They feel as down home as the Texas Longhorns or the LSU Tigers. There's really something going on here with how the team interacts with New Orleans' culture. I mean, the Saints are a big part of the culture here.

If you're going to live in the Crescent City, you might as well give in and go "WHO DAT!" It's like gumbo and Louis Armstrong. If you're not a Saints fan, you're just not getting it. The odds makers are saying the Colts by four. I say they're full of shit.


Tracy Porter #22 of the New Orleans Saints intercepts a pass and returns
in for positive yards late in the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Vikings
during the NFC Championship Game at the Louisiana Superdome on January
24, 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)


Quarterback Brett Favre #4 of the Minnesota Vikings kneels on the turf
in pain after he took a hard hit against the New Orleans Saints during the
NFC Championship Game at the Louisiana Superdome on January 24,
2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Spoon: A Slow Build To Success

From NPR's All Things Considered:

The band Spoon is a bit of a rarity in rock music — both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

But it took more than a decade for Spoon to get there. The band came together in Austin, Texas, in 1993; five years later, it signed on with a major label, Elektra. In the sea of alternative acts of the day, Spoon wasn't able to stand out enough — at least for the label — and after one record, Elektra dropped the band.

Now that's usually where the story ends for most rock acts. But Spoon signed with a smaller label, Merge Records. And by 2000, the band finally started getting some serious attention, with a string of well-received albums: Girls Can Tell, Kill The Moonlight, Gimme Fiction.

But it was still seven more years before Spoon landed on Billboard's Top 10, with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

Click here to read or listen to the rest, as well as a couple of Spoon songs!

Years ago, I knew Spoon's lead singer and songwriter Britt Daniel when we were taking radio, television, and film classes at the University of Texas. A bunch of us went to see them play at Antone's blues club in the spring of '94, apparently right after the band was founded. Following their set, Britt came to our table, and after everybody spent a few minutes congratulating him for a great show, he told me that they had planned to do a Paul McCartney song that they had learned just for me, but couldn't quite squeeze it in. That was just fine: what they did play was exceptionally good.

A couple of years later, I finally moved away from Austin, and that was the last I heard of my classmate Britt Daniel and his band Spoon. Until these last few years, that is, thanks to NPR's seeming interest in pushing their stuff on the radio. And that makes sense. Spoon writes and plays intelligent pop rock, the kind of stuff that kids can dig, if they come across it, but not the kind of stuff big record labels market to them. NPR's college educated and culturally sophisticated adult audience, however, adrift in a sea of plastic crap music, is literally hungry for this kind of Beatlesque, Elvis Costello oriented smart pop.

I wish I was as good as these guys.

Anyway, this is a good interview. Short and sweet. Go check it out. And while you're at it, go buy their new album. I know I will.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Obama unloads on high court over campaign finance

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Obama on Saturday unloaded on a divided Supreme Court for allowing more corporate influence over elections, intensifying his criticism of a ruling that has suddenly reshaped campaign rules in the midst of a midterm election year. The court's 5-4 decision on Thursday allows companies and unions to spend freely on ads that promote or target particular candidates by name, and lifts the barring of union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of campaigns.

“We don't need to give any more voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” Obama said Saturday, devoting his weekly radio and Internet address to the topic. “And we don't intend to.”

The White House is working chiefly with Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, on a bill pushing back on the court decision. The goal is to put forward legislation within two weeks, Van Hollen said Saturday, but the choices are limited by the nature of the court's First Amendment ruling.

Among the options under consideration are requiring the approval of a majority of shareholders before a corporation can run a political ad; requiring the CEO of the company to appear at the end of the ad so the public knows who is behind it; limiting the ad-spending of corporations that have received federal bailout money or that get federal contracts; and trimming down the privileges that come with legal corporate status if companies pump money into political campaigns.

More here.

Years ago I had a friendly argument with a good friend of mine who is a conservative. We were talking about the vast sums of money used to get candidates elected. My position was that, presumably, the American way is one man one vote, but the large concentrations of wealth that some individuals and organizations, namely corporations, are able to direct toward political purposes utterly undermines such a notion. My buddy's position was that money and free speech are indistinguishable, which is supported by Supreme Court precedent, and that all campaign finance restrictions ought to be lifted.

"What we need," he said, "is complete transparency, so that voters know where political money is coming from, which enables them to see the bias in the information they receive about candidates, so they can make better informed decisions."

"But people don't pay much attention to that stuff," I replied, "and even if they did, who has the time to research all that crap? Besides, you know what Goebbels said about repeating something enough until it becomes the truth, whether it's true or not. The loudest and most omnipresent voices win the day, regardless of the truth."

"Then people need to get it together as far as fund raising goes," he replied.

"But the super rich and corporations have a wildly unfair advantage as far as fund raising goes!" I shot back. "The net result here is that if you have shit loads of money, you have a much much much bigger say in how our country functions."

"Well yeah," he said, "because money and free speech cannot be separated."

"But what about democracy?" I asked.

"What about democracy? This is democracy."

We went back and forth on that point for a few minutes until I realized that neither of us had anything else to say. He was just fine with money trumping voting. I was not.

Leaving aside for this post the disturbing notion that corporations, which are not citizens, or even human beings for that matter, should have the same first amendment rights that people do, we still have a problem that effectively renders the concept of one man one vote almost totally moot: in the United States, according to the Constitution, money equals free speech. The President has some decent ideas about how to blunt this latest Supreme Court ruling, but ultimately there is absolutely nothing he or the Congress can do about the fact that more money means more influence, that voting is largely ceremonial these days, without much meaningful substance, and that we are effectively ruled by corporations and the super wealthy.

When the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, the Founders could not possibly foresee this. Speech was cheap. One could buy or borrow or rent a printing press and distribute pamphlets, or obtain a soapbox for free and rail against or for whatever ideas he liked. No one imagined the rise of mass communication, and the effect it would have on the political process. I'm not one to slavishly adhere to "Founders intent" or whatever, but I think it's safe to say that if they could see what we call "democracy" today, they'd be horrified. This is not the nation they risked their lives to create.

It now appears that the only way out of this is by amending the Constitution, something that takes the money out, or at least heavily marginalizes its effect on politics. Unfortunately, everyone in Congress was elected with corporate cash. Everyone. And they depend on that money for reelection. No fucking way they're going to kill the golden goose, and it doesn't matter one bit whether it's good for the country. I mean, after all, they're no longer our representatives: they represent the corporations and the super rich.

How do citizens get a constitutional convention going? Do citizens even care?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Reine and Dash



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Air America, the Talk Radio Network, Will Go Off the Air

From the New York Times:

Air America, the long-suffering progressive talk radio network, abruptly shut down on Thursday, bowing to what it called a “very difficult economic environment.”

The chairman of Air America Media, Charlie Kireker, said in a statement that the company would file under Chapter 7 bankruptcy “to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.”

In a troubled time for advertising-driven media businesses, “our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week but ultimately fell short of success,” Mr. Kireker said.

More here.

I tried a couple of times to get into Air America, but I just didn't like it. I mean, Al Franken was funny and all, and I've come to embrace Rachel Maddow's work on MSNBC, but for the most part all of AA's other shows were either boring or annoying--I never understood the appeal of Randi Rhodes, a loud mouthed asshole who makes Rush Limbaugh appear sophisticated by comparison. And why the hell was Jerry Springer doing a show? But whatever.

In the end, I think the biggest problem AA had was that it was much more partisan than it was liberal or "progressive," whatever that's supposed to mean these days. I mean, for the right wing, there's not much of a difference between conservative and Republican, at least in practice, but the Democrats take so many stupid fucking positions that you lose a great deal of credibility in terms of ideology or political philosophy when you try to defend them or advance their views.

That is, early on, Air America decided that it was going be a pro-establishment liberal network, and necessarily took on all the baggage that doing so entails. And when you factor in that, these days, "establishment liberal" really means "conservative," in the Bill Clinton or Barack Obama mold, it was only a matter of time before nobody cared what AA had to say about, well, anything at all.

I would say "rest in peace," or something along those lines, but I don't really give a shit. Indeed, I'm kind of glad it's gone. They were never really my kind of "liberal."

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

STAR TREK
The City on the Edge of Forever

From Wikipedia:

"The City on the Edge of Forever" is the penultimate episode of the first season of Star Trek. It is episode #28, production #28, first broadcast on April 6, 1967. It was repeated on August 31, 1967 and marked the last time that NBC telecast an episode of the series on Thursday nights. It was one of the most critically acclaimed episodes of the series and was awarded the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The only other episode with such an honor is the two-part episode "The Menagerie". The teleplay is credited to Harlan Ellison, but was also largely rewritten by several authors before filming. The filming was directed by Joseph Pevney. Its only guest star was Joan Collins as "Edith Keeler".

This episode involves crew of the starship USS Enterprise discovering a portal through space and time, which leads to Dr. McCoy's accidentally altering history.

More here.

Lots and lots of people assert that this is the best one. And it is pretty damned good. Excellent, even. But before I rave about how f'ing great "The City on the Edge of Forever" is, it's probably a good idea to point out a couple of things that don't work for me.

For starters, Dr. McCoy's insanity is laughable, at least for the first third or so. I mean okay, unintentional comedy is something that one must embrace if one wants to enjoy Star Trek, so Bones' weird "Killers! Assassins!" ranting, often delivered straight to the camera, is very much in keeping with the Trek aesthetic. On the other hand, I think his performance would have been way better if he had toned it down a bit. In contrast, the almost always hyper-pumped William Shatner needed to tone it up. Way up. Throughout, the former Shakespearean phones in his lines, and we realize that his odd habit of irrationally pausing between words, best understood by watching John Belushi's classic parody of Kirk on Saturday Night Live back in the late 70s, works well only when delivered intensely. My speculation, as an MFA actor, is that Shatner decided that he was going to play "star crossed lover," and adopted a sort of detached poetic attitude in lieu of playing actions and pursuing objectives. Problem is, attitude makes for inauthentic acting, and because he was so low key, intensity had no chance to make up for his non-believable performance. In short, Kirk's pretty boring in this one.

I mean, don't get me wrong. Kirk has his moments, especially the scene when he tries to explain Spock's ears to a 1930s New York cop. And McCoy gets it figured out by the time he's transported to the twentieth century. His "needles and sutures" speech is just about the best thing I've ever seen him do. Spock is great all the way through, with some especially nice reaction shots, complete with his trademark raised Vulcan eyebrow. Joan Collins' performance of Edith Keeler makes the episode worth watching even if it sucked, which it doesn't.

But what really makes this episode tick is the story, and the efficiency with which it is told.

Never mind that it was written by a hideous dwarf with an ego so massive that he went ballistic when Roddenberry insisted on a rewrite to remove Star Fleet officers engaged in drug dealing, a big no-no for the franchise's vision of the future. This one's so tight that it would make Alfred Hitchcock envious. And the ideas here are just wonderful: a ruined ancient civilization which had mastered time travel, drug induced space insanity, a 1930s peace movement that keeps the US out of WWII allowing the Nazis to develop nuclear weapons before the Allies can, star crossed love, and on and on. This one has it all, and it comes at you like a runaway train.

Indeed, in many ways, it doesn't really matter how subdued and unbelievable Shatner is here: the story makes you cry for Kirk's lost love, even if his acting doesn't.

Yeah, this might be the best. I just wanted you to know that it's not perfect. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch. By all means, check it out.


"A question."

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Taliban attacks paralyze Afghan capital for hours

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

KABUL — Taliban militants wearing explosive vests launched a brazen daylight assault Monday on the center of Kabul, with suicide bombings and gunbattles near the presidential palace and other government buildings that paralyzed the city for hours.

Afghan forces along with NATO advisers managed to restore order after nearly five hours of fighting as explosions and machine gunfire echoed across the mountain-rimmed city, sending terrified Afghans racing for cover. Twelve people were killed, including seven attackers, officials said.

The assault by a handful of determined militants dramatized the vulnerability of the Afghan capital, undermining public confidence in President Hamid Karzai's government and its U.S.-led allies.

The attacks also suggested that the mostly rural Taliban are prepared to strike at the heart of the Afghan state — even as the United States and its international partners are rushing 37,000 reinforcements to join the eight-year war.

"We are so concerned, so disappointed about the security in the capital," said Mohammad Hussain, a 25-year-old shopkeeper who witnessed the fighting. "Tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops are being sent to Afghanistan, yet security in the capital is deteriorating."

More here.

We can't win this thing, whatever "winning" means these days.

Kabul is supposed to be Afghanistan's equivalent of Iraq's Green Zone in Baghdad. Okay, not quite so secure, but the safest and most stable place in the region. Indeed, detractors have for years mocked US Puppet-President Karzai by calling him the "Mayor of Kabul," meaning that his government only controls a city, rather than a nation. Apparently, he's not even capable of that these days.

So we're sending thirty thousand some odd troops over there now, Obama's "surge" to try to get things under control. My bet is that this soldier influx will stabilize Kabul and the surrounding area, but how the fuck is such a microscopic increase supposed to pacify all of Afghanistan with its twenty plus ethnically controlled regions? Right, it can't. This is simply wishful thinking, which reveals that President Obama isn't really all that different in many ways from his mentally challenged predecessor.

The Soviets couldn't do it. The British failed twice there. And we'll fail, too.

We need to get out right now. Sure, use Vice President Biden's idea if we must, keeping a base there for rapid response/terrorist fighting stuff, whatever, but end this folly immediately. We're dying; they're dying. And it's bullshit.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

A day late, I know, but better late than never.

From Democracy Now:

AMY GOODMAN: While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of US foreign policy and the Vietnam War.

In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4th, 1967, a year-to-the-day before he was assassinated, Dr. King called the United States, quote, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Time magazine called the speech “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post said King, quote, “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

More here.

Since I moved into the deep South, I've been hearing a weird idea that Martin Luther King Day is some kind of holiday for black people. I don't understand it. I mean okay, I get that this is a white people idea, the idea that MLK Day is just for African-Americans, but in order to think such a thing, one has to completely dismiss the notion that ending American apartheid was good for the entire nation, and such a dismissal stinks of nostalgia for the days of segregation and Jim Crow.

I, for one, in contrast to what appears to be many of my white brothers and sisters here in the South, claim Dr. King's legacy for myself. He, along with thousands of unsung heroes who fought for civil rights out in the streets, pushed the American white power structure to do the right thing. The whole country owes him and the movement whose ideals he so well articulated an enormous debt.

But the MLK I really dig is the one who took a turn toward the radical late in life, the man who began to realize that racism doesn't exist in an ideological vacuum, that oppressing people because of the color of their skin cannot be separated from oppression in the more general sense. I'm convinced that's why he was finally assassinated. It's as though the power elite was okay with him saying nice things about black and white kids holding hands, but going after war and capitalism drove them nuts. You won't hear much about that Martin Luther King on the news or on PBS or in the schools because that same power elite continues to call all the shots today.

At any rate, if you want to know more about the radicalized Dr. King, check out this Democracy Now episode.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

What Happens To Polar Bears As Arctic Ice Shrinks?

Or, more importantly, what happens to us?

From NPR:

Anderson, former editor-in-chief of New Scientist magazine, says at the rate the sea ice is melting, by the summer of 2050, the Arctic will be a mostly open ocean.

"The polar bear is the king of the Arctic, the top predator. It'll be gone," Anderson tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz. "A killer whale living in open water will be the symbol of the Arctic, replacing a bear on ice. And that's an astonishing change.”

Anderson says as the ice melts, it will take several forms of "revenge" on those living south of the Arctic.

"Once the tundra that rims the Arctic starts to thaw, what we'll see is greenhouse gases pouring out of that tundra," Anderson says. Those gases include methane and carbon dioxide, and they'll contribute to climate change, he says.

Another problem: rising sea levels. As the ice cap sitting on top of Greenland melts, it pours into the sea. Anderson says if the entire cap melts, sea levels worldwide will rise by 20 feet or more.

Click here to read or listen to the rest.

The article goes on to observe that the Greenland ice will take much longer to melt than Arctic ice, but the net effect would necessarily be the slow destruction of all developed coastal areas. You know, like New York City. Or, for that matter, New Orleans, where I live now, or Houston, where I grew up.

But the bottom line, for me anyway, is that this is just another story. That is, we're literally watching the Arctic thaw while we continue to have the same argument about global warming that we've been having for the last twenty years. There is no sense of urgency, at least, not from the elite class who own and run the country. Yeah, the polar bears are going, so sad. Just another story. It's becoming increasingly clear that our "democratic" system is simply incapable of doing anything about this.

So it'll be hundreds of years before the Greenland icecap totally melts, raising the sea by twenty feet. But things'll be way fucked well before then, fucked in ways we don't even understand yet. It's not simply about polar bears losing their habitat: it's about the catastrophic breakdown of the global eco-system. Make no mistake. By mid century, the way we live our lives, those of us connected well enough to survive, at least, will be unalterably changed for the worse. And nobody with the power to do anything about it gives a fuck.

Why pursue a career? Why have children? Why do anything at all? Nothing matters anymore. It's all going to end, and soon. How should one behave on the eve of destruction? I have no idea.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

RON REEDER LIVE!

I'm busy tonight, so not much of a post here at the moment, but I do want to plug the fourth performance of my theater/rock 'n roll hybrid show this coming Wednesday. I'll be playing at the same place as last time, the Neutral Ground, 5110 Daneel St., in Uptown New Orleans, from ten to eleven p.m. Lots of songs about the issues I obsess over here at Real Art, but with less of a partisan edge. Lots of banter about culture and politics, as well as a couple of straight-up theatrical performance pieces. Bring friends.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all!


Performing "Smith's Commencement Address."


Performing, I think, "Everybody in Austin."

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Roi



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$